


Acidity

by elisabomb (kurama3173)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Florawatch, Gardening, Gen, Healing, Hydrangeas, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurama3173/pseuds/elisabomb
Summary: “As long as they are here, they will always be the same, year after year.”Hanzo learns to move forward, change his colors, and begin a new life, far outside the walls of Hanamura castle.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Florawatch: An Overwatch Floral Themed Fanzine





	Acidity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Florawatch zine! I am so grateful to have been a part of this project with so many talented individuals :) please enjoy my piece.

Beneath the balcony of Hanzo’s shabby hotel room was a sea of pink. Hydrangeas. He would recognize them anywhere. Their round puffs of simple, delicate flowers were identical to the ones from his mother’s garden in his youth, save for the color. 

_“Hanzo, do you know how hydrangeas get their color?” she had asked him, what seemed like a lifetime ago. He could not have been older than nine._

_“No, mama,” Hanzo replied._

_“It is all because of the soil they are planted in,” his mother explained. “The soil in Hanamura is highly acidic. So these flowers will always be blue. But if you were to take one away from here, replant it in different soil with less acidity, the flowers would bloom pink.”_

_“Really? The same plant could have totally different flowers?” Hanzo asked, reaching out to touch the indigo petals._

_“Yes,” his mother replied with a gentle smile. “But as long as they are here, they will always be the same, year after year.”_

Hanzo lit a cigarette as he leaned out over the balcony. How long had it been since he left Hanamura behind? It had to have been a month by now. His encounter with Genji was still fresh in his mind, still burning hot like a brand. 

_“The world is changing once again.”_

Hanzo exhaled a plume of smoke into the air, and watched it dissipate over the flowers. The world was changing, but Hanzo was not. He knew better than to believe that he could change. He had followed the path he had been led to. He had bloomed where he was planted. 

And yet here he was. As Hanzo gazed down at the sea of pink beneath him, a lump formed in his throat. He pulled a worn, crumpled scrap of paper from his jacket pocket, and opened it to read it for probably the thousandth time. It said nothing, save for a set of coordinates written neatly in Genji’s handwriting. Perhaps it was time to stop traveling aimlessly, and face what was waiting for him at the end of the road. 

\---

Hanzo exited the debriefing from his last mission flanked by his peers, agents of the newly reformed overwatch. 

“Hanzo, thank you for having my back out there,” Agent Mei said warmly. “If you hadn’t been there, I would have been captured for sure.”

“And those sonic arrows are a neat trick,” Agent Tracer chirped from his right. “We found the enemy in record time.”

“I was only doing my duty,” Hanzo told them. The praise felt alien to a man so used to operating alone in the shadows. 

“Maybe, but you saved lives today, and that’s worthy of recognition, don’t you think?” Agent Mei reasoned. 

“I do not need recognition,” Hanzo said quietly. “Excuse me.” He made for his bedroom to change into clean clothes, but as he passed the courtyard, something caught his eye. 

Since his arrival six months ago, Hanzo had taken it upon himself to clean the abandoned, disheveled courtyard garden. He spent weeks pulling tangles of dead weeds, sweeping debris, and replacing the broken stones at the edges of the flower beds. Other agents occasionally watched with interest, but they left him to his project. Soon, the once forlorn courtyard was filled with new greenery by Hanzo’s hand. When he left for his latest mission, nothing had yet bloomed, but now as he passed the courtyard, the burst of pink was unmistakable. A single hydrangea bloom waved gently in the breeze. Hanzo stepped outside and knelt down before the delicate flowers. 

_“You saved lives today.”_

It had been ten months since he last set foot in Shimada castle. Ten months since he left Hanamura behind, and with it, his life as an assassin. If the Hanzo of ten months ago could see him now, he would be furious, confused. 

_“As long as they are here, they will always be the same, year after year.”_

Hanzo reached out to touch the pink petals of the hydrangea with a gentle hand. Blue had always been his color. It was the color of the Shimada clan, and he had worn it with pride and without question for most of his life. But maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late for Hanzo to bloom another color. 

He stood and returned to his bedroom, letting his hair down from its bun. He nearly laughed as he looked himself in the mirror, thinking of how his old self would react to his new undercut and piercings. Maybe he really had changed. Hanzo dressed in simple, comfortable clothes, and sat down on his bed. Ordinarily, he would spend the evening after a mission alone, reading or maintaining his weapons, but perhaps it couldn’t hurt to join the team in celebrating a job well done. Just for tonight. 

Hanzo made his way to the dining hall, and as he passed the courtyard, he paused only a moment to take one more glance at his hydrangea. With a small, nearly imperceptible smile, he continued forward. Perhaps it was time to take root. 


End file.
